


For Want Of A Troll

by kathkin



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Space Dorks go to the arcade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5808421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It just wasn’t possible. This was some kind of twisted nightmare. It had to be. The Doctor and Jamie couldn’t possibly both be trapped in the crane machine.</i> In which Zoe is uncannily good on the crane machine, the Doctor wants a troll doll, and Jamie robs a vending machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Want Of A Troll

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [The IT Crowd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM3d7ANOyjY).

The machine beep-beep-beeped in triumph, its clawed arm swishing across the tank and dropping its precious cargo into the chute. Sticking out her hand, Zoe caught the toy just as it tumbled into the tray. “Eighteen!” she said, waggling the – what was it, a mouse? A yellow spiky mouse? – the toy whatever-it-was at the Doctor.

“Hm,” he said. “Yes, very good, Zoe.”

Zoe beamed at him. She handed the toy to Jamie, who looked it over and added it to the steadily growing pile of dollies and stuffed animals in his arms. A squashy toy pig was dislodged and tumbled to the arcade carpet with a rubbery _squeak_. “Och,” said Jamie as he groped for it. “This is gettin’ out of hand.

“Jamie’s quite right, Zoe,” said the Doctor. “You’ve been hogging the crane machine for a while now. Do you not think it’s time you let someone else have a go, eh?” He tapped his fingers together.

Zoe looked around the arcade. Other than the constant bleeps and blips of the machines and the steady stream of synthesised music, it was fairly quiet. Most of the children playing at that time of day were more interested in the higher-tech games. There was certainly no-one waiting to use the crane machine.

Jamie got it first. “D’you mean _you_ want a go, Doctor?” he said, juggling Zoe’s prizes.

“Well, now that you mention it,” said the Doctor, “I _did_ want to have a go at getting this blue fellow here.” He tapped the glass where a troll droll with a tuft of shocking blue hair protruded from the heaped toys.

“I can get him for you.” The troll doll _was_ wedged into an awkward position, but Zoe thought she could get it. She held out her hand for another token.

“I’d, ah, like to do it myself, if you don’t mind.” The Doctor patted down his pockets and produced a fistful of tokens. Elbowing Zoe aside, he slotted one into the machine.

Zoe scowled. She _did_ mind. She’d wanted to go for a nice even twenty in a row. She supposed she _could_ do two more once the Doctor had his troll, but it wouldn’t be the same. She was on the point of arguing, but Jamie nudged her and shrugged as if to say _best let him have his way, eh_? “Alright, Doctor,” she said. “Have fun. I’m going to get a drink.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, yes.” The fingers of the claw closed briefly on the troll’s wispy hair – before shooting upwards, empty. “Oh – damn and blast!”

Zoe caught Jamie’s eye and rolled hers. Together, they wove through the arcade in search of refreshments. “See now, I understand the wee dollies,” said Jamie, “and I know what most of the animals are – but what do you suppose this is?” He held up the yellow mouse.

“I’ve no idea,” Zoe confessed.

“Is it a rabbit?” He turned it around. “Why’s it got such a long tail on it?”

“I think it’s cute.” Actually, she’d been aiming for the stuffed elephant beside it, but she was hardly going to admit that she’d missed.

“If you say so.” He put it back atop the pile.

They emerged onto a tiled area where there was, at busier times, a café. Just then it was closed and darkened – but there was a boxy machine by the door that she thought she recognised. It was called a ‘vending machine’ and it was a primitive precursor to the food synthesiser.

Regrettably, it didn’t take tokens. Zoe squinted at the faded label beside the keypad and said to Jamie, “I don’t suppose you have any money?”

“Hmm?” Jamie looked the vending machine over. “Oh, aye. There’s a knack to these.” With the air of an expert, he plopped all the stuffed toys into her arms and rolled up his sleeves. “Only take a moment. You have to – sort of –”

In what Zoe thought was an absurdly reckless and probably illegal move, he took a hold of the sides of the vending machine and began to shake it. “C’mon,” he said, shaking it harder. “Ach, c’mon!” He aimed a firm kick at the bottom of the machine – and another – and with an unhealthy sounding rattle a can tumbled from its perch and rolled out the bottom. Repeating the process produced much the same results, _and_ a packet of gummy sweets. “There, see? Easy.” He grinned at her and offered her a can.

“That’s _stealing_ ,” said Zoe, mortified.

Jamie looked at the machine. “Oh aye, so it is!” he said as if it had only just occurred to him. “So it is. Drink?” He held out the can again.

Zoe sighed, thrust her toys at him, and accepted it. She was _very_ thirsty. Winning eighteen toys in a row was hard work.

She opened the can as they ambled back to the crane machine. The liquid inside was disgustingly sweet and probably horrible for her teeth, but she drank it anyway.

“What’re you gonnae do with all these, anyway?” Jamie fumbled to carry her toys and drink his lemonade at the same time.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Zoe said with a careless shrug. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “Maybe I’ll decorate the TARDIS console.”

“Oh, aye.” Jamie laughed. “I dinnae think himself –” He rounded the last corner and stopped dead. “What in the –”

Zoe turned the corner – and dropped her can. Lemonade fizzed all over the carpet. She said a very bad word. Jamie looked at her, aghast. He looked at the Doctor. Zoe really couldn’t say which stunned him more – her language or the Doctor’s predicament.

“Ah – Jamie, Zoe,” said the Doctor’s muffled voice. “Could you, ah – help, please?” He tapped on the inside of the glass.

The Doctor was – he was _in_ the crane machine. He was kneeling half-buried in the piled toys, wedged in place, the claw brushing his shoulder. He tapped feebly upon the glass. “Jamie?”

The spell broke and they rushed to the crane machine. “I don’t understand,” said Jamie.

“Doctor, how on earth –”

“How’d you get _in_ there?”

“Well, ah,” said the Doctor, “if you could just, er, help me out?”

“But how did you get _in_?” Zoe looked the machine up and down. She couldn’t see any openings except for the slot where toys came out – and unless the Doctor was capable of shrinking himself (which, she supposed, wasn’t _impossible_ ) –

Toys clutched in one arm, Jamie was examining the machine. Touching the edges of the box, searching for a seam, he worked his way around.

“Well, you see – I was trying to get that blue fellow –” the Doctor nodded at the blue-haired troll pushed up against the glass, “and I, ah – it’s a little hard to explain. But if you could just give me a hand out –”

“And how are we supposed to do that?” said Zoe. Going by the look on the Doctor’s face, he hadn’t a clue. She rolled her eyes, balled her hands into fists, and said, “can’t you just get out the same way you went in?”

“That might be a bit easier said than done, Zoe,” he said in the tone he used when he thought he was being clever.

“Oh – you –”

Jamie finished his circuit of the machine. Touching the last edge, he said, “it doesnae open at the back. How did ye get _in_ there?”

“You know, I really don’t think that’s important,” said the Doctor. “I think we ought to focus on getting me out.”

“It would _help_ if we knew how you got in!” Zoe snapped.

“I told you,” said the Doctor. “I was trying to get the little blue fellow, and – oooh,” he cooed. “I was very close – if I give him a nudge one of you might be able to reach in and grab him –”

“We’re no’ helpin’ you get your damn doll,” said Jamie.

“It’s not a doll,” said the Doctor hotly. “It’s a troll – they’re collectible, you know –” At their looks, he fell silent. “Ah. Help?” He tapped the glass.

Zoe allowed herself a few deep breaths, and said, “alright. It must open _somehow_. Jamie, you keep an eye on him while I go and find an employee.”

Jamie nodded crisply. “Aye. I’ll keep an eye.”

“Thank you, Zoe!” the Doctor called after her. As the crane machine dropped away behind her, she heard him say, “now Jamie, you’ve got good long arms –”

It was a simple enough plan: find someone who worked for the arcade, calmly explain the situation, and ask them to open up the crane machine. Zoe was sure nothing could go wrong. After all, it wasn’t as if her day could get any _worse_.

In the event, she ran into an unforeseen snag. “No, I don’t know how he got _in_!” she snapped. “He won’t _tell_ me – but he’s stuck.”

“In the crane machine?” said the employee, who was a skinny boy barely older than she was.

“Yes, in the crane machine.” Really, how many times did she have to reiterate? “Can you _please_ come and open it up?”

“Ri-ight,” he said. “Your friend’s stuck. In the crane machine.”

“You said that already.” Zoe was getting a bit hot under the collar. It really wasn’t fair, she reflected. Before the Doctor came along, everyone she met trusted her implicitly. She was used to being regarded as a very trustworthy person. It simply hadn’t occurred to her that anyone might think she was lying. “Are you going to open it or not?”

“Can’t,” he said, attention already wandering to the children playing some sort of dance game. “Not allowed to open the machines during opening hours. S’policy.”

“Not even in an emergency?”

He shrugged unhelpfully. “’Snot an emergency,” he said. “Look, love, if you want the toys you have to play the game.” 

Scowling, Zoe wondered if it would help her case if she were to kick him very hard on the shin. Probably not. “I’ve won _eighteen_ already,” she hissed.

“Course you have,” he said. “Oi! You! Wait your turn.” He strode away to break up a scuffle at the dance machine, leaving Zoe alone and resisting the temptation to stamp her foot.

She tramped back through the arcade, muttering under her breath about the dreadful service and hoping beyond hoping that the Doctor had found his own way out in her absence, because she didn’t know what else to do. At the very least, she decided, now it _really_ couldn’t get any worse.

Her toys were piled neatly on the carpet. She stared at them, puzzled, as she rounded the corner. Then she looked up – and saw Jamie.

“No,” she said.

“Hello, Zoe,” said Jamie, face squashed up against the glass.

“No, no, _no_ ,” she wailed, taking her head in her hands.

“Aye, I know,” he said. “Would ye mind, erm, givin’ us a hand?”

It just wasn’t possible. This was some kind of twisted nightmare. It _had_ to be. They couldn’t possibly both be in the machine.

She opened her eyes. They were both in the machine.

“Oh, Jamie, how did you get _in_ there?” she cried.

“It’s a bit of a long story.”

“I was only gone a few minutes!”

“Aye, well it was a long few minutes,” said Jamie. “Och, I was only tryin’ tae help.”

“Yes, and a fat lot of good it did us,” chimed in the Doctor. The pile of toys they were submerged in wobbled. 

Jamie grunted. “Hey! Get yer foot out of there!”

“Now, if you’d just done what I said –” said the Doctor, still kicking.

“How did you – how do you both _fit_?” Unless the crane machine was dimensionally transcendental, she couldn’t imagine how they’d done it. But there they were, squashed into opposite corners, wedged in uncomfortably tightly and at least having the decency to look contrite.

“It _was_ a bit of a squeeze,” the Doctor admitted. “Ouch! Careful, Jamie.”

“ _You_ be careful,” said Jamie, toys jiggling about.

“This is ridiculous,” said Zoe, hands slowly clenching into fists at her sides. “ _You’re_ ridiculous. Both of you. I’ve got half a mind to just _leave. you. there_.”

That got their attention. They stopped kicking each other and turned upon her. “Ye cannae do that!”

“Oh, Zoe, Zoe –”

“It was all his fault!”

“It’s our hour of need, Zoe!”

“ _Every_ hour is your hour of need!” Zoe snapped – and she turned upon her heel and stormed away across the sticky carpet, leaving them calling her name and tapping mournfully upon the glass.

“Zoe!”

“We didnae mean to, Zoe!”

“Oh, do come back!”

Zoe didn’t listen. She stormed all the way through the arcade till she found the employee, picking his nose and half-heartedly supervising the children on the dance machine. “They’re _both_ in there now,” she announced.

He took his finger out of his nose in astonishment. “Eh?”

“My friends,” she said. “I went away and came back and now the other one’s trapped too.”

He blinked at her. “Sure, love.” His finger returned to his nose.

There were times, Zoe reflected, when drastic measures were called for. When one had to do whatever was necessary, no matter how unpleasant or undignified. Yes, there were occasions when one had to do the most awful things to achieve one’s goals.

She burst into tears.

“They’re both _tra-aa-aped_ ,” she howled, “and they can’t get _out_ – and now you think I’m _lyyyying_ –” She broke down into incomprehensible sobs. “ _In the cl-crane machine_ ,” she gasped as if inconsolable.

“Alright, alright,” the boy said. “Alright, calm down. There’s no need for that.” He flapped a grubby tissue at her. “Show me where they’re trapped, alright love?”

Zoe snigged, and nodded. “Alright.”

Wiping her eyes, she led him to the crane machine – where to her astonishment, she could hear the Doctor and Jamie’s un-muffled voices.

They were standing in front of the machine – free, and recently so, going by their flushed faces and the way the Doctor was brushing Jamie down with his handkerchief. “Well, that’s certainly one way to do it,” he was saying. “Oh, hallo, Zoe!”

“You’re out,” she said flatly.

“Out?” he repeated, blinking innocently.

“What’s all this, then?” said the arcade employee.

The Doctor and Jamie exchanged a look. They shrugged. “Is there a problem?” said the Doctor.

“She,” the employee nodded at Zoe, “said you were trapped in the crane machine?”

“Trapped?” said the Doctor with an uneasy chuckle.

“In that wee thing?” Jamie jerked his head at the machine at his back.

“Preposterous,” said the Doctor.

“How’d we get in?”

“How would we _fit_?”

The arcade employee looked at their awkwardly innocent expressions. He looked at Zoe. She could tell he was struggling to wrap his head the situation. “Why’d she say you were in the machine?”

“Because they _were_ ,” Zoe insisted. “They –”

“Oh, our Zoe,” said the Doctor. “Always making up stories. Eh, Jamie?”

“Oh, aye,” said Jamie, nodding. “That’s Zoe alright.”

Zoe gaped at them. They weren’t – they were. They were actually trying to blame the whole mess on _her_. “Oh, you –” At a loss for words, she marched across to the machine and aimed a punch at Jamie’s arm. “How _dare_ you –”

“Ow! Zoe!” He pulled away and rubbed his arm. “That hurt.”

“Serves – you – _right_ –” She swatted at him. “You – great –” She broke off.

What she could now see from where she was standing – what the arcade employee hadn’t noticed yet – what the Doctor and Jamie were so carefully screening from view with their bodies – was the broken glass and cuddly toys strewn across the carpet and the gaping hole in the back of the machine.

Her first instinct, embarrassingly, was to tattle on them. That suppressed, she looked to the Doctor for an explanation. “Doctor –”

“Yes, well,” the Doctor breezed. “Now that that’s cleared up, we’d best be out of your hair.” His gaze flicked to the employee’s cropped head. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Come along, Jamie, Zoe.” Straightening his coat, he strutted away like a proud rooster.

Jamie trotted along behind him. Zoe made a frantic grab for her pile of toys and hastened to catch up without dropping any. “We are going to have _words_ ,” she hissed.

“Later, I think.” The Doctor flapped his hands at them. “Faster.”

“What?” said Zoe.

“Faster!” he repeated.

From behind them, there came an exclamation. “Oh bloody hell!”

“Run!” cried the Doctor, and he took off like a shot.

“Run,” gasped Zoe, and pelted behind, her toys clutched to her chest.

They raced between the arcade machines, rattled through the turnstile, and tumbled down the steps into the midday sunlight. There, Zoe doubled over, wheezing, squeezing her cuddly armful. “I can’t,” she said, “ _believe_ –” Jamie was laughing. She lobbed a toy at him. “How could you _do_ that to me?”

“I’m sorry,” said Jamie. “But your _face_ – oh, Lord.” He descended into giggles. Zoe idly contemplated the logistics of pushing him into the sea. It was only twenty feet and a railing or so away.

“I’m sorry, Zoe,” said the Doctor – and he at least sounded like he meant it. “It just seemed simpler. It was only logical,” he added with that terribly irritating spark in his eye.

“Well, alright.” Zoe hefted her toys and trotted down the promenade. “You know,” she said once they were a few cafes down, “you still haven’t explained how you got in there.”

“Best be going, I think,” said the Doctor, rooting through his pockets.

“That’s not an answer,” said Zoe.

“Hmm?” said the Doctor. “Aha! Here we are.” With a happy sigh, he tugged the blue haired troll from his pocket. “Isn’t he smashing?” He waggled the toy at her.

Zoe turned to Jamie for an explanation, but received none. He shrugged. “You had tae be there.”

She gave up. “I give up,” she said, and handed one of her toys to a passing child.


End file.
